MONASTERY

3 months living with Benedictine and Trappist monks – what could go wrong?

Years back, in the early-after 9/11 era, I lived with Roman Catholic monks at Benedictine and Trappist monasteries from Canada, to South Carolina, to Massachusetts, to California. I started off the journey with a few weeks at an Ashram in Pennsylvania and finished it at a Buddhist monastery in New York State. I wasn’t looking to find myself, I wasn’t looking for peace and solitude; rather, I was conducting research for a novel I had started to write in which one of my characters had lived much of his life in a monastery. I sought the right back story for my protagonist, and while I had done tons of research online, read a variety of books – Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, Lonnie Collin Pratt’s Benedict’s Way: An Ancient Monk’s Insights for a Balanced Life, The Rules of St. Benedict – when I learned that visitors could stay at monasteries and live in guest houses, eat meals with the monks, pray with them, and work during the days with them, everything for me shifted. The opportunity to live the story and conduct research firsthand had me gearing up to go. Within a few weeks of interacting with various monastery guest masters and coordinating my work schedule, I had booked visits at a variety of monasteries, to include St. Peter’s Abbey in Saskatoon, Canada; Mepkin Abby in Moncks Corner, SC; St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, MA; and Prince of Peace Abbey in San Diego, CA.

My unraveling began at the Ashram, where caffeine, sugar, and pretty much anything that tasted good from my perspective was banned, and where I got in trouble for wearing sleeveless shirts during 90-degree summer days. It wasn’t that anyone confronted me; rather, flyers were suddenly posted throughout the facility that dress code needed to be maintained, noting that sleeveless shirts were inappropriate. I was part of a self-transformation program – the only way I was able to drop in for a few weeks and stay for relatively free – which consisted of an austere schedule of pre-dawn morning meditation, followed by yoga classes, and then labor. Some days we worked out in the garden, other days in the kitchen. I ended up meeting a wonderful and diverse group via the self-transformation program, and together we formed a bit of the Breakfast Club as we each navigated our way through the confines of the ashram, and our own shifting lives. We even left the grounds one night to indulge in sugar-laden treats – ice cream and chocolate – and awoke the following morning with severe sugar hangovers. After my two weeks at the ashram, living in a barren dormitory room with a door that didn’t have a lock on it, I was as ready as a New York City girl who worked in the fast-paced world of publishing could be to visit my first monastery.

 

St. Peter’s Abbey: The Belly of the Whale

Although I have since lived through many stressful travel situations, nothing will ever compare to the situation that I found myself in when I first arrived in Saskatoon, Canada. After disembarking from a flight of fathers, sons, and rifles, I was detained by security, who opted to empty out my duffel bag possessions, which included everything from books, journals, folders with tons of novel notes, yoga clothes and mat, and some food items.  After doing my best to convince security that I really was headed to the monastery out in Muenster, I learned that there was no way for me to get to St. Peter’s Abbey, which was in rural Saskatchewan. That is, there were no rental cars available and no taxi drivers wanted to participate in the two-hour drive out to what was apparently the middle of nowhere.

Whether it was chance or fate, I met a woman taxi driver who told me she would drive me there but asked if it was okay if we first stopped at her house to pick up her husband, who too was a taxi driver, but had the day off. The New Yorker in me envisioned a kidnapping or some such unfortunate fate, but my choices were slim: I either entrusted her to my journey, or I got on the next flight back to NYC. This was in 2002, pre-Uber, pre-many of our modern conveniences in terms of travel. When we pulled up to her home, a few miles from the airport, she went inside, and about ten minutes later, she emerged with her husband. They explained that they were leaving their children home alone, and that the trip would take roughly 1.5 to two hours. Over the course of the journey, the dry and barren prairie all around us, I learned about their settling in Saskatoon after leaving their native Romania, and their attempt to earn a living and raise their children in Canada.

When we arrived at St. Peter’s Abbey, the oldest Benedictine monastery in Canada, the afternoon sun was blazing, and cotton drifted through the air, like tiny white birds in flight. A dirt and gravel road led us onto the grounds and to the cluster of red-brick buildings that struck me as industrial. I wondered why people had to get so far away from civilization to practice peace and serenity. One of my yoga teachers had often told us that throughout his childhood in South Africa, his father used to make him meditate on street corners that pulsated with traffic. The intention was to learn to meditate regardless of the noise, not to have to escape from it to find oneself.

Nora’s reassurance was just what I needed to give this phase of my journey a chance. She shared her phone number and instructed me to call her if I needed her. I was not sure if my mobile phone worked out there, but having her number comforted me, just the same. She sent me off on my adventure with warmth and encouragement, and still, now, I remember her – one of the people who led me past a threshold in my life, encouraging me to be brave, just as she had been when she arrived in Canada.

After the topsy-turvy events of the day, my first evening at St. Peter’s was surreal. I settled into my room, which was antiseptic and sterile, with a bed, a dresser, a cross on the wall, white tinny shades on the window, a small closet, and a bathroom. The bathroom, with its black and white checkered linoleum floors and shoddy toilet and shower, reminded me of a hospital-room facility. I arrived at the dining hall an hour later, and to my good fortune, there was a woman’s writing group on retreat – they were all staying at the building across the way, in St. Scholastica. They welcomed me to dine at their table, and over the course of the next few days, I shared meals with them, walked with them around the prairie which looped the Abbey after dinner, and spent some time lounging in St. Scholastica with them discussing our favorite short story writers – Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, Andre Dubois.

The Abbey had its cast of characters and eccentricities. There was Brother Kirk, who played the guitar, taught psychology at the college, and painted portraits that adorned the college that shared the grounds with the Abbey; there was the middle-aged man who had divorced his wife and was discerning monastic vows. He had come and gone from the monastery for the good part of the last few years. Each time he was just about to vow his allegiance, something had made him doubt if he was ready. In the guest wing kitchen, there were cookies in tins stacked above the refrigerator. Oozing chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and ginger cookies, just the right blend of sweet and tangy and tart. There were the other guests who I often heard being dropped off, but then rarely saw except during meal time. There were two nuns from different locations in Canada on retreat and there was the teenage boy. My imagination hungrily made up stories about each of them and what had led them to St. Peter’s. The teenage boy was a drug addict or a troubled child whose family had wanted to teach him a lesson and dropped him off with the threat that if he didn’t get his act together, they would leave him to the monks. The nuns were not sure if they were holy enough and needed time and space to pray and be with God to figure out what was next in their lives.

I wrote for a while each day, but I also experienced the monastery up close. I was a journalist of sorts, and the daily events – including running on the prairie where things appeared closer than they were, praying with the monks a few times a day in the chapel, sitting out in the garden that was connected to the church wing and taking notes, reading – became my new normal. One of the brothers took me out to the apiary, put on full apiary gear, and explained the process of collecting honey, which the monastery processed, packaged, and sold throughout the area. Another brother took me on a golf cart out to visit the hermitages a few miles away. As we walked through the sparse living quarters that didn’t have in-door bathrooms, he explained that some of the brothers chose to live in complete solitude for periods of time each year. I also got to know some of the monastery gossip – the story of the brother who played the organ who ended up marrying a nun from St. Scholastica when nuns still resided there years back, and now still came to play the organ for the brothers. There was the guest master who had cancer for the third time that the brothers were concerned over. Just like me, the monks had their daily worries, stories, and histories.

At St. Peter’s I was also inducted to Benedictine rituals and routines: I learned that the daily schedules, or horariums, of each religious community may differ in terms of hours, but generally, Monks arose before day break, and ended their day in the evening, with the day divided into seven prayer sessions. When the bell rings on the monastery grounds marking each prayer session, the monks make their way into the chapel. Prayer is an expression of their relationship to God, and something that Monks do as a community throughout the day.

Benedictines and Trappists alike (my next monastery would be Trappist) take a vow of chastity and leave their families behind, although many visit their family and friends during the year, and welcome family to the monastery. While Trappists live and work within the grounds of the monastic community, Benedictines typically work both within the monastery grounds as well as within the community teaching, studying, and visiting parishes. The monks at St. Peter’s Abbey were part of the fabric of the community; when I visited Mepkin Abbey, I learned that the monks did not typically venture out in the community, although many visitors passed through their grounds.

After a few days in this strange new world, I felt far away, so cut off from my world, that I began to question everything. What mattered to me? What was I in search of? While those of us who are reflective in nature often seek time and space to be alone, to read and write and research, I was reminded that we are truly so alone within ourselves that it is a gift and sometimes a necessity to be with others. During this initiation phase, I learned that monks are human: some days the prayer is easy, and other times, it is hard to be present to God, just as some days we struggle with ourselves, our families, and at our jobs. It is up to each of us to find our why to keep showing up. One’s relationship to prayer, like all relationships, shifts and evolves throughout a monk’s life, just as our relationships to family, friends, spouses, careers shift throughout our lives.

The monastery led me down roads of myself that I didn’t know existed – corridors of questions that were close to my surface but buried amid to-do lists and responsibilities and paying bills and daily life. The imposed solitude also grounded me in a whole new reality that taught me that beyond my running, beyond my yoga, beyond the hours I spent writing, so much peace, so much understanding, so much self-exploration and growth, comes from being with others and witnessing their lives. The quiet out on the prairie was some of the most intense quiet that I had ever experienced. After a few days of going to sleep each night and waking up each morning to the owl who who-ing outside my window, I didn’t know who I was.

 

Mepkin Abbey: The Trees of All Things

Venturing to Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist Monastery in Berkeley County, South Carolina, I felt a bit more grounded. I had learned a lot about monastic life during my time at St. Peter’s Abbey, including that it was probably best to allow one of the brothers retrieve me at the airport and drive me to the monastery. Looking for the brother who was to retrieve me, I was somewhat self-conscious. Being a woman and of the Jewish faith, I realized I was the unlikely Roman Catholic monastery guest, but I also believe that faith is universal, and that people are on earth to learn from and guide one another.

The brother who picked me up at the airport wore black pants, a black top, and a white collar; I later learned that he was a priest, which meant his proper title was Father. Monks that have been ordained priests help with the sacramental ministry of the Church.  As we loaded my suitcase into his car – which he explained the brothers shared for various errands – he noted that his nephew attended the Citadel, although he wasn’t there on that given day due to it being summer break. He asked me if I had ever been to the Citadel and offered to show me around, which I accepted. We headed over, and together, we walked around campus. At one point, we leaned on a wall and took it all in together – the grounds, the buildings, the students, before he said it was time that we made our way back, as supper and Vespers were approaching.

Allowing others to take care of me –picking me up at the airport and providing me with room and board – was new for me. I didn’t like it, but I also didn’t want to have to fend for myself in this foreign world of monasteries. Once I got started on my journey, it was as if I had walked into a closet and embarked on hidden doors that kept leading me to the next door. I wanted to keep learning and discovering. I wanted to understand what the vocation to devote one’s life to Jesus, to one’s brothers, to a monastery, meant. The mystery absorbed me, and it wasn’t lost on me that my life and the choices I made were also enigmatic to them.

The more familiar I grew with the monks and their way of life, the more I acknowledged that the monks do not live so differently from us in that they were routed by ritual, routine, and structure: they awoke before dawn, prayed (Vigils), meditated, ate breakfast, prayed again (Lauds), followed by Eucharist, then when “Grand Silence” ended around 8 am, they worked for a few hours, before they prayed again (Mid-day Prayer), ate dinner, and then went back to work, until they broke for supper, then prayers (Vespers), then Compline, before “Grand Silence” began and they retired between 8 – 10 pm, depending on the monastery.

The shape of their daily lives was not dissimilar to the structure we each impose on our own lives with work and family responsibilities, our daily driving or traveling to and from, and adding in time to shop, exercise, run errands, eat, relax. Most of us have realized at some point that to be efficient, to accomplish our daily tasks and goals, schedules are important. What differentiates the monks in many ways is that their schedules afford them time to meditate, to center, to give thanks, while for most hectic professionals, those are the first things we give up in our to do list when our lives grow hectic. In my own experience, routines can either be a conduit for us to carve freedom and thought into our days, or a jail cell—it depends on our relationship with our activities, and if they are indicative of our purpose and passion. If we are misaligned, then routines are bleak. But if we are aligned in some capacity, the everydayness of tasks and rituals enable us to soar and accomplish. I long ago learned that if I wait for the muse to visit to sit down and write, writing may never happen; rather, it is in sitting down to write each day that I make time and space for the muse to visit with me. Ritual and routine, viewed and accomplished in the right light, are perhaps our lifelines.

The grounds at Mepkin Abbey were nothing short of extraordinary; the Cooper River at the edge of the surroundings was both soothing and inviting. The trees lining the gardens and the shore were majestic. Their limbs reached in all directions, like arms trying to clasp on to all who came near, and their trunks and roots were vast and deep, so that standing beside them, you felt the depth of their history. They were rooted in all that was, but also reaching into the future with their strength and endless branches and blooming leaves. They reminded me of old men, of flowing robes the way their branches danced in the breeze, and as my time there went on, they reminded me of the monks themselves, with their multifaceted histories, and their mysterious, yet grounded and practical ways. I designated the trees TOATs or Trees of all Things, and at nightfall, when I sat on the guest house porch taking it all in, their shadows seemed to loom over the grounds, like goliaths watching over us all, protecting us, until it was time for us to turn in for the night in the hopes of starting all over again the next day.

I have always been intrigued by the dark corridors of life, the forbidden frontiers that we don’t get to venture. The rooms and closets and halls and attics that are forbidden. To me, that is where the stories are, although I am also grateful to find the stories in the trails and fields and beaches and sun-filled paths. At Mepkin Abbey, as with all the monasteries I visited, there were “Do Not Enter” and “For Monastery Personnel Only” signs that led to the Monk’s cells, or rooms. The dark corners and rabbit holes of life are a writer’s paradise. Once I started on my journey, I was not ready to stop. How much could I take from my experience? How much could I learn? How far within myself and my own dark corners could I travel before I had to come up for light, for air?

It is often a fine line between insanity and story; between reality and creation. The fairytale nature of Mepkin Abbey enveloped me and the juxtaposition between those grounds and the guest house I resided in, left me feeling both expansive and claustrophobic. My room was a blend of eclectic lamps and nick knacks, a Kelly-green shag rug, and the bathroom was made up of a portable toilet and shower; the room was dark, stuffy, musty, and thrown together in a way that made it unrestful for me. My favorite part of the guest house was the attached porch that I shared with the other guests who resided in the strip of guest rooms along side me. We each had one chair outside our rooms, and the first few days, I was hesitant to sit outside, because I feared who may be in the rooms next door to me. I should note that I have traveled alone for years and not thought much of it. But there was something to the guests who visited monasteries that made me uneasy. I envisioned people on the run, individuals with histories best left unknown. But that was my mind making up stories – the fine line between insanity and story in action. It is sometimes a gift and other times a curse to have an over-active imagination.

At Mepkin Abbey, I befriended a married middle-aged man who was trying to piece together the next phase of his life. He was a professor, and someone who had visited the monastery a few times over the years. It was unclear to me if he was discerning taking vows, or if his retreat was more focused on determining the next chapter of his career. The monks didn’t seem to appreciate our friendship, but we continued to talk through meals, to walk back to the guest house together after prayers, to sit on the porch in the evenings and talk. We talked about the monastery, the vocation in general, books, writing, life. We kept in touch for some time after meeting, but now, in retrospect, I cannot recall the exact details of his life, other than that meeting him was a highlight of my journey as his humility, his desire to contemplate and make space and time for the answers to come stayed with me all these years. It was a reminder that we are all seekers in this world and that we do not all have the answers figured out, and probably thinking that we do is false. It has also stayed with me as the ability to converse with and know another human being from a completely different background is a gift that we don’t often pursue in our hurried lives.

 

St. Joseph’s Abbey: Safe Havens

My visit to St. Joseph’s Abbey, a Trappist Monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts, led me down a new path. En-route to the monastery, I had a car accident on I-84; the bumper of a semi-truck flew off and hit and destroyed the windshield of the rental car I was driving. Perhaps it was the gift of youth that kept me going, or a desire to delve further into the unknown. Regardless, hours later, I was in a new rental car and back on the road. The accident had shaken me up, but it also forced me to make decisions. I had taken this time away from work to visit the monasteries, and St Joseph’s Abbey was on my list. It was a now or perhaps never situation.

When I arrived at the guest house I was staying in – the Retreat House on the Abbey grounds was full, so I had been directed to stay at Mary House down the road from the monastery – it took me a few minutes to process that it was simply an open house for passersby to reside at for a few days. I was familiar with bed and breakfasts and hotels, but unlike both, this was a contemplative house, with no phones, televisions, or radios. You were required to bring your own food and prepare your meals in the kitchen, and were encouraged to be quiet and peaceful, without much interaction with other guests. Walking in and out throughout the day with no keys required – the house was kept unlocked – was a bit unsettling to me. That first day, after all that had occurred, regardless of how tired I was, I couldn’t imagine going to sleep with the house being unlocked. Who else was staying there with me? When would they return? Did anyone lock up the house at night? There was a note for me on the kitchen table, detailing which room was mine, and a print out of the house rules, which consisted of quiet, sharing the kitchen, where to place my things in the refrigerator, and so on.

My bedroom consisted of two beds, each adorned with white lace bedspreads, and a private bathroom that was many shades of blue – baby blue porcelain tiles, blue and white lace towels, and blue toiletry accessories, and yet it wasn’t warm and inviting. I felt like I was back in the 1970’s in that bathroom. The windows in my room overlooked the front entrance to the house at one angle, so that I was able to monitor who was coming and going – although as the days went on, it was rare that I saw anyone at all, except for the house guardian now and then, when she came by to check on things in the evenings.

Downstairs, there were pictures of Thomas Merton on the walls, and books of all sorts – theology, philosophy, novels – were scattered about in book cases. There were plenty of areas to kick back on couches and read or write or just sit and be. Walking through the house, it amazed me that there are places in life that take us in with no questions asked. It fascinated me then, as it does now, that with all the nooks and crannies of life, that more people do not get lost, vanish. At Mary House, I felt further away from the daily life of the monks, but I also felt closer to myself. I didn’t feel compelled to take part in the prayers throughout the day. Mary House afforded me the opportunity to go inside and reflect and take in all that I had experienced.

St. Joseph’s Abbey had a certain New England charm and grace to its stature, and the landscaping, with its rich greens and vibrant trees, was breath taking. In Spencer, I ran a lot. I looked around. Not being confined to the monastery grounds enabled me to branch out a bit and grow familiar with the town, and the roads which led me to and from Mary House, the Abbey, and down town. There were days that running to the monastery trucks and cars swerved to make room for me to share the road. There were days during my runs that I had a disquieting feeling that if I got lost, I could vanish from my life, from everything that I knew. When I visited the monastery, I felt more like an outsider than part of; I was not eating my meals with the monks, not witnessing them on the grounds daily. The doors were closed to me in many respects and it reminded me of what a gift it was for people to invite you in, to share their time and space with you.

This part of my adventure was darker than the others, mostly because I felt alone, which led me to more reflection and analysis. I was floating through time and space, and although I had more time to embrace my daily rituals of reading, writing, and running, suddenly all the downtime made me feel overwhelmed. Learning to be with my thoughts, with my feelings, without all of the daily external stimulus – conversations, interactions, observances, books – made me heavy and afraid. I felt a screaming within and wanted desperately to break out. But I was also growing aware that this desperation was perhaps the beginning of my growth and realization of what it meant to be a monk, to be so far removed from external stimuli, and to seek peace and growth within.  During my time in Spencer, I began to understand contemplation, and the benefits of a solitude so deep and pure that is not a cut off from the rest of the world, but a tunnel leading one into and through oneself.

 

Prince of Peace Abbey: California Dreaming

Prince of Peace Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery in Oceanside, California, was to be my last Benedictine monastery to visit for the summer. The monastery was situated on a mesa overlooking the San Luis Rey River Valley and the Pacific Ocean. I chose it for a multitude of reasons: I wanted to get back to a Benedictine Monastery after two visits to the more austere Trappist settings, and I also wanted to determine if a monastery on the west coast with the Pacific Ocean not too far away was a different way of life for a monk.

When I first pulled into the monastery with my friend who lived out in Las Angeles and had agreed to join me, I felt as if I had entered the past. There was something of the Brady Bunch era to the grounds, which were gorgeous in a simplistic ranch-like way. I am not sure if I was tired of so much peace and discovery, or if I just needed to be young and fun again, but I was resistant at this point to joining the daily prayers. I preferred to use my time to look around, meditate, write. I spent time on the mile-long prayer walk each day, taking in the views, trying to imagine what it felt like to devote one’s life to these grounds, to this structure, to contemplation.

The monks here were an array of various ages – most elderly, with one noticeably young monk. I wondered why each of the monks had chosen this life. Was it what they wanted, or was it as an alternative to something else? What led them here? I was particularly curious about the young monk. He later became a character in my novel because that is the gift of writing – when we are intrigued by others, we can invent their story and depict it as honestly as our imagination and emotions allow us.

After three days and nights at this monastery – my girlfriend had brought candles, towels, and bed sheets with her so that we could make the room warmer and more of our own – we opted to leave and go off on a lighter-hearted California adventure. We didn’t flee so much as we consciously chose to change the channel and be young and fun and non-monks for a few days before I was to head back to New York City. There were parts of me that wanted to stay on for a few more days at the monastery, but mostly, I wanted to erase the intensity of the weeks and months I had spent at the monasteries; I wanted to find my way back to me, although I wasn’t sure anymore who the real me was. I began in many respects to see my life as similar to the monks, with my routines and solitary runs, and the hours I spent reading and writing. But unlike the monks, I wasn’t ready to give up the freedom of making mistakes, and doing things that I may regret, and that I would have to find my way out of. I wasn’t ready or willing to commit to a sheltered existence, and so leaving the monastery early was my way of saying yes to the risk, rigor, and wild ride of life ahead of me.

 

Life After the Monks

There was an adventure to a Buddhist Monastery in New York after my other visits, but regardless of the beautiful temple and the devout followers who sang praise to White Tara, it didn’t ring authentic for me, and thus did not resonate. It cemented what I had learned: we apprise the experiences that speak to and soothe our souls, while the others fall away, like autumn leaves.

It is impossible to go back to what was after life altering experiences. I had not expected what I found; my journey was so much more than a research endeavor. It was an unraveling. It was pulling myself apart piece by piece, and once I had gotten farther along in my journey, there was no putting myself back together, because I was no longer the sum of those parts. Fragments of me were gone forever, and new parts had formed. I had always thought of monasteries as quiet and peaceful, but I learned that the people who inhabit them work each day to find God, to gain his worthiness. It may lead to peace, but the monks I interacted with were in search of, which meant that sometimes their internal lives were noisy and complex. I’ve read much of Thomas Merton’s work and his struggle to know himself and to know God. Living is not easy business. While we tend to think of a life at a monastery as sedate, I see it more as a descent into oneself, without much to distract one from the quest to know oneself and to assess one’s life daily. Beyond that, the monks labor – they work and pray and are pillars of strength in their communities. It is a brotherhood of striving, and learning, and acceptance.

Why do I still think about it now? Because in a world where we tend to believe that others have it easier, that the next job will be better, that the next relationship will be different, it is a reminder to me that we take ourselves wherever we go – for better and worse – and that what we cannot fix in one situation, will likely come back up for us in the next. It is a reminder to me that there are times I must be with myself, explore the nature of my vices and my virtues to understand my inner workings. The monks taught me the various textures of silence. When we are in silence, there is still conversation, but there is not the need to saturate peace with noise. Silence provides time to contemplate, to feel, to be.

My time with the monks taught me that I must carve my path and resist trying to move to the next thing until I achieve peace where I am at. The monks schooled me in the Wednesdays of life; they imparted that each day is a blend of a work, study, eating, community, contemplation, prayer, and finding the light. My time with the monks is a reminder to me of the struggle and strife we as people endure, monks and secular folks alike, and that the mythic silence and solitude cure sometimes brings up the most deafening noise within. It is a reminder to me that we are all people and all share in the same emotions: love, fear, sadness, joy. Just because one enters a monastery doesn’t mean he leaves his heart at the gate – we truly take ourselves wherever we go. It is a reminder to me that we each have our own relationships with God, as we do with one another. It is also a reminder to me that I am never alone and that there are people and places who will always take me in. It is a reminder to me that no matter how chaotic life may be at times, the deliverance of ritual, of daily schedule, of prayer, may have the power to transform, and bring order back to my life.