Unified Monk Theory MONASTIC LIFE IS NO LONGER AN ENIGMA by Jynne Dilling 4:30 p.m. Monday The monks have a cat. I'm still not sure why this was the very first thing I wrote in my journal. I guess because in all the different images I've ever had of monks, all the exaggerated and farcical portrayals I'd ever heard or seen -- celibate, brown sackcloth robes, cruel, gentle, shaved heads, old, chanting, silent, awe-inspiring, comical, setting themselves on fire, or thumping themselves on the head -- somehow cats had never been in the picture. So to walk in the foyer of the monastery guest house and see a grinning monk setting down a fat grey and white cat, hastily brushing fur from his robe, and extending his hand in greeting was highly unexpected. 7:02 p.m. Monday Brother Stephen told us about the cats: he said to approach them with our hands open and with peaceful vibes, to let them smell us, then gently scratch their heads. This is the way, it seems, that the monks approach their own lives. Whether it be preparing supper or cleaning the dishes, tending their cows, speaking with me or one of the several other guests, walking along the Shenandoah River, shoveling snow, singing, helping make the thousands of fruitcakes they sell every year to support their monastery, or petting the cats, there is a tenderness and openness in their gestures, in the quiet tones of their voices, in their eyes. 7:07 p.m. Monday Monks, by the way, make some damned good coffee. The kitchen was right down the hall from my room, and the monks left the coffee brewing all night. A note next to the coffee invited guests to avail themselves of not only the coffee, but anything else we could scrounge up. For me, this meant a lot of late night peanut butter sandwiches and either coffee or orange juice. Across from the dining room and kitchen was a library with an impressive collection of religious and secular literature that we were free to take back to our rooms. 10:28 p.m. Monday There is nothing quite like eating a peanut butter sandwich and drinking monk-brewed coffee under the clear night sky beside a cat and surrounded by sleeping monks and cows. I didn't know how to explain to my friends why I wanted to spend part of my winter break living at Holy Cross Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in the Shenandoah Valley. If anyone asked questions I quickly became defensive: "No, I do not own rosary beads; I certainly am not thinking of becoming a nun; I'm not even Catholic, and just don't start with those insinuations about me and all those 'celibate old men'!" Yet the problem really wasn't their inane jokes, it was that I wasn't really sure of all the reasons I was going: to write, to read, to meditate, to be alone, to get away from the hectic pace of college ... it was ultimately a chance to wonder about those esoteric abstractions which somehow manage to haunt me in a very real way -- existence, self, God, art, truth. So why not just rent a hotel room? Too expensive, for one. But more compelling, I am at once fascinated and terrified by the monastic life, devoting one's entire existence to confronting, rather than running away from, these existential questions -- a rhythmic seeking of truth and beauty in the rituals of daily life. 2:27 a.m. Tuesday The monks will be awake soon, at 3 a.m., for a half hour of meditation and then the 3:30 a.m. vigil's service. They live on such a precise schedule -- supper, for instance, is at 6:25 p.m., and Brother Stephen requested that I be "prompt for dinner and supper." For the monks, time seems to be a sort of poetry, and they live in its rhythm. They align their waking and sleeping with the rising and setting of the sun. Their services resonate with the time of day -- enthused choral reading of psalms at 7 a.m., as the sun breaks over the Blue Ridge Mountains, and quiet harmonized chanting of prayers with dimmed chapel lights at 7:30 p.m. Even the church liturgical calendar, dictating what scripture and liturgy is to be read every day of the year, follows the changing seasons and recalls the history of the church through time. The monks have no delusions of self-grandeur, but know that they now live in this rhythm of life and will someday die and be buried next to their fellow monastics. A row of white crosses next to the small chapel, marking the graves of monks who came before them, is a reminder of the impermanence of this life. 8:09 a.m. Wednesday Tuesday night at supper, Brother Stephen told us a story ... "One thing I've learned is that the dead always continue to help the living," he announced, leaning back in his chair and gulping his coffee until he got everyone's attention. Brother Stephen is one of the older monks at the Abbey and is rather hard of hearing, so he tends to speak unnecessarily loud, bellowing out above the already quiet voices of the other monks. He then went on to tell us about how he'd recently gone to the mortuary to help the undertaker dress the body of a fellow monk in the formal monastic garb -- proper attire for burial. He'd noticed that this brother had died wearing a fairly new pair of shoes. He looked down at his own tattered pair and back at the new pair, which looked just about his size, and then, to the mild chagrin of the undertaker, switched shoes with the dead monk. As if this story wasn't surprising enough, Brother Stephen interrupted the chuckles of the few monks present and the shocked stares of the guests with a resounding, "And that's not all!" and proceeded to tell us about his recent visit to his doctor. It seems that his hearing aids had not been working effectively, and he was going to need new ones (a rather hefty expense for the monastery). When he arrived at the doctor's office, he learned that another patient had recently died, and his widow had returned the man's hearing aids. Brother Stephen tried them on and discovered they worked perfectly. "The only problem," he added, "is that now my name is Bob on the warranty!" Monastic humor is difficult to follow. After laughing about this for a minute, Brother Stephen instantly became sober and closed off his anecdote with a reminder to maintain a "dialogue with the dead" for they can watch over us and teach us about ourselves as we walk through life. 3:57 p.m. Wednesday The monks said something this morning along the lines of, where God is, there is love, and where there is love, there is God. The monks are true mystics, and as such they have a heightened sense of the mystery of life. God is not all doctrine, didacticism, or something found and described in the decrees of the Pope and the laws of the Church. God is the transcendant wisdom and beauty that they seek in every moment of their lives, whether milking the cows in jeans and a sweatshirt or kneeling in the chapel wearing their white robes and sandals. 4:07 a.m. Thursday Went to the 3:30 a.m. vigil service -- no singing, just recitation and silences. At the end of every service one monk with the deepest and most sonorous voice I've ever heard always starts the prayer; there'll be dead silence and he'll say "Our Father" and then the rest of the monks join in for the next lines. It's actually pretty creepy ... Also, it has started to snow. 2:46 p.m. Thursday It is still snowing. After lunch the monks were outside kicking snow at each other... 8:14 a.m. Friday Sad to leave this place ... learning to love silence and song.

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