Monkdom

Last Christmas, my husband and I decided to get the heck out of dodge and escape the crazy wiles of the red and green season. The thought of being trapped in a parking lot full of flickering lights and silver tinsel and all the happy people was making me sick to my stomach, so I got the wild notion that we could escape to a monastery and experience what they call a 'silent retreat'. That meant my husband and I would stay in separate quarters and be separate from each other, except for meals, so that we could think and write and be.
Being a woman of many words, my talker got trapped inside my head and merrily dislodged herself on pieces of journal paper to help me feel not so alone. This is my unreserved observation of my first experience in a monastery as a woman who has no frame of reference whatsoever for Catholicism, who was raised a grape juice drinking, “Just As I Am” 14th verse singing, here-I-go-down-the-aisle-to-get-saved-again Baptist.
The monks sing with long white robes and hoods that fall behind their heads, which is reminiscient of the KKK, but I am in a monestery and I am all too grateful that I am not witnessing a demonstration in Pulaski, Tennessee.
It is in this place that I begin celebrating the gift of life. In deep silence it speaks, and my heart grows louder, and the dirt in my heart rises and I feel my humanity and I sense the need for a savior, to come and save me from myself.
I can see how a monastic retreat from the world could hold one like a little baby, and how the vigils three hours apart could become like regular feedings, much like the breast of a new and loving, experienced mother. And yet the stillness seems to lack humor, or maybe it is buried knee deep underneath layers of readings and liturgy and common prayers. Maybe these men have common inside jokes about Paul or Mary or Peter, or maybe they sew cloaks together and speak about their mothers with great respect and laugh about good times in the kitchen. They say much of life is ninety-nine percent perception and one percent reality, and I cannot help but to wonder what real life is life for a monk. One man has been here over fifty years. When he sings I feel as if I have time traveled to the third century and I am Mary's great-grandaughter in the house of Rome. They all go by father, and I want to know who they father. And if maybe I could sign up for an hour of their time to get fathered. But I'm not sure what they would say to me and I'm afraid I might have to eat a wafer and confess that I haven't been a great daughter. Dad got all the flack.
Christmas Eve service I felt as if I was wading slowly in the pool of long ago. Fransiscan monks began living and working here at the Abbey of Gethsemene in 1841. They are buried out front. And as I hear the words of the fathers, so many fathers here at the abbey, I begin to wonder if there are five fathers, commited real fathers who teach their children virtuous principles and have time to listen to them lament and celebrate and love, in the whole dad-blamed state of Kentucky. It seems a crying shame they are all here locked up in a monastery. And I wonder if maybe they could build an orphanage and an old folks home close by, maybe here on this 1000 acre farm, so that the old ladies can rock babies, the teenagers can have fathers, and they can all have Christmas together. All celebate of course.
The monks speak with gentle authority and sit quietly together with a seeming appreciation for the lack of hindrances around them. Maybe women give them headaches, because at this moment there are three women taking flash photography of these poor monks like it is some Opryland musical revue and they forgot to announce in the beginning that flash photography is strictly prohibited. And then I begin to ponder how I am not exactly sure why the Amish, Mennonites, Huttites, Quakers, Monks, Non-Electrics, Farmers, Homesteaders and such intrigue me so. Maybe it is the staunch smell of modern pop culture that burns my eyes, turns my stomach and sends me restlessly waiting for something other than virtual reality (almost real, but not quite), and the real lives of people I do not know (reality tv) and probably never will. I am drawn to the home churchers, the tv thrower-outers, Little House on the Prarie episodes and Laura Ingalls books of all types, and to men that don't scare me. The ones that look gentle and Jesusy, my husband being one of them.
In Christmas eve mass, I am emotionally unable to participate, as I am not Catholic and just the brick laying and stained glass on this building is enough for me to praise God for the amazingness of the hardworking sweat boys who built structures for God for the purpose of shielding themselves from the world. I don't blame them. It was a pretty good idea if you ask me. Not a bad life, although the cells remind me of what Martha Stewart went through.
The long built in knee pad prayer thingies seem to be teaching me that praying on my knees may not be a bad idea for deflating my ego, as knee praying is a good dose for humility, one of the of the more sought after traits of a good Christian. The only problem is that it makes my fear-filled, prideful heart retreat into the back corner of my left chest cavity and impatiently lurks around the corner waiting for me to please stand up. And as I smell the incense, it reminds me of the bowl-passing pot parties my sister used to have when she drug along her tag along baby sister. I breathe in deeply hoping if I hold it in a while I'll get good and high and the Catholic Bible might actually make sense to me and I'll feel at one with monkdom and start writing genious songs reminiscent of Bob Dillon in the sixties only it will be me in the two thousands and I'll be singing about peace in monkdom.
I feel like a spectator, as there is nothing for me to truly do, and I wonder how this is any different from me sitting in front of a television at home. The repeatedness of these masses drive me absolutely crazy and I feel like Bill Murray in that movie “Groundhog Day” where each morning he repeated the same day until he finally cracked and began making a difference in people's lives, right then and there without question. I guess the difference is that these are real people here, with real lives, that I am real and benefitting from their lives of solitude and greatful I have a place to go to for free, with free meals and free lodging and I suddenly realize it is the dysfunction in my sick brain that would have to find something wrong with it. Their voluntary poverty and absolute simpleness is profound to me and I do not have to question their motives. I am only here to enjoy it.
Staying in a monestery feels somewhat cell like. Only you're not in prison, you didn't do anything wrong and by golly you chose to come here. My small pale room is plain Jane with large icons of Jesus and Mary and Joseph with scary sun disks around the backs of their arty heads and droopy doopy faces that look like they were made in a nineteen eighties college collage art class in "How Depressing Can You Make Jesus". Not to mention that Jesus has enormously long legs and is involuntarily wearing a white mini-skirt like sarong with a rather flashy and fashionable gold lamay belt for his day. And I begin to see why non-Christians are totally weirded out by the whole Christiandom thing. These icons are scary, I've covered mine with two Gap sweatshirts and I took down the cross over my head so that I could think straight. I cannot think straight with a cross hanging over my head, I feel like a nun in training and doesn't the Bible say something about not worshipping graven images? Oh well it's like grandma said, it's either in the Bible or it's an old Kenny Rogers song.
And then there is this smell of holy that embraces my being as soon as I let off the elevator into the 'silence only' zone. I'm not sure if it is unrecirculated air, incense from the cathedral or the many years of silence that is regularly spoken in these hallways and rooms. This smell of holy is unfamiliar to me and I am perplexed as to why I didn't smell this scent in the Baptist Sunday school hallways or the charasmatic cry rooms. Just this one particular monesteric hallway that wiffs of a peculiar sense of holiness. You would think that it would drop me to my knees and I would immediately start singing dominus glorius in excelsis deo in the highest or something. But instead I am just dumbfounded that in all my days I have never smelled this fine tasting scent of holy. It is like a mix of burnt rug, b.o. and grandma's closet with a little hint of some essential oil like a rosemary-dirt combo.
There seems to be some well fed monks here too, as one fringe benefit of becoming a monk seems to be the food. This is a self-proclaimed vegetarian monestery, which is why I was a little confused at lunch when they served ham. (That's pork, as in meat). One older, bald monk had a stack of sliced ham piled eight high and was eating to his heart's merry delight when my mouth dropped in awe and his monk eye caught me glaring at him.
The next day, I decided to be more respectful and do the whole stand up, sit down and also with you thing. After all, this is their religion, their boringness, the least I can do is plot along like a sheep to the slaughter. I got really jealous when I read that non-Catholics are asked not to partake in eucharist (that's communion to the Baptists), because I knew the Catholics drank real red wine, and that I didn't mind a glass for special occasions, and boy was this a special occasion and I wondered if maybe I could help with communion preparation, kind of like grandma did with the ole Welch's grape juice only I might be able to score a bottle of 1989 Yellow Tail Shiroz and have a silent party in my room for the rest of the night, because all this chanting and silence is making me a little loopy headed. But then I remember how bad it makes me feel to drink more than one glass and the smell of holy comes over me again and I talk myself out of the whole thing. Not to mention it would really embarrass my dry, never had a drink, super responsible husband who is married to a somewhat curious and precocious woman who sometimes forgets she is thirty years old and is all grown up now.
In the last night of our stay, I stayed up late pondering what lessons I should be learning from staying four days and three nights deep in the heart of monkdom. In deep contemplation and stillness, my mind's eye recollected the hours I spent staring at miles of glass trees and red birds and wet snow and the four hour talk I had with my sweet husband as we sneakily slipped away into a meditation room to talk and dream of our future. And I began to think...maybe peace is not a place, is not a person, is not a philosophy, but is the still small voice within that says, "You are OK, I am here, I am in your presence, in your midst, you are no accident, there are no accidents, I am loving, I am kind, now go to bed."
Ok just as a disclaimer, I know it sounds like I'm really reaming the Catholics, but really I love them just like everybody else. In fact, we went back to Monkdom this year and really enjoyed ourselves and I was much more relaxed. The icons didn't bother me and I didn't even bring my Gap sweatshirts to cover them. I had a mighty fine time hanging out with the Monks and the quiet people and I met some wonderful seekers who, even though they wear two pound Jesus's on their necks, spoke to my heart like they were Jesus themselves. I was blessed. I would say that I'll be back next year, but I have a baby in my tummy and she/he doesn't like the fudge. Yeh, they make fudge there, from scratch like Great-Grandma, and I'm trying to make myself believe that my kids won't be addicted to chocolate like I've been. I highly recommend this place to anyone out there that needs a real break from modern society. The monks don't bite. The smell of holy is quite refreshing. And you can sleep all you want. For free. It's like a giant Ramada without the televisions and the maids wear long robes and say things like “Peace be with you.” Can't beat that. And there is a movie theatre nearby if you get really stir crazy. Just so you know.
Peace out like a baby Nimrod.