Zeal for the Lord's House, Egg on my Face

At 2:30 a.m., before the church bells rang, before the shuffle of quiet men—before the day bowed me for the first time, my alarm clock sounded.  My window was open, and a chorus of South Carolina’s bugs sang me awake.  I rose, splashed some water on my face, then threw on my house robe.  

Monking-it-up was a choreographed experiment in mindfulness and letting go.  Throwing on my habit, I used to try to recall the specific symbolisms of each part, to stay engaged: the white house-robe was a symbol of purity.  Once my head and arms had found their respective places in the garment, the rest was just a matter of gravity.  I imagined being pure was just that easy.  The scapular went on next.  A symbol of the cross, the scapular was a hood that covered head and shoulders, extending long dark strips of fabric down the front and back of the body.  When I’d been given the habit, I’d taken the name Dismas, the name of the good thief crucified next to Jesus.  The scapular was, for me, an important reminder of what I was about. The final piece of a full habit was a leather belt.  It had to be leather: it was a symbol of “the death of the flesh” and of obedience, and it was the piece that I donned with most difficulty.  I always felt too alive and unwilling to make the gesture easy.

At first, I tried to recall the symbolisms.  At best, I wanted to be a good monk.  But at worst, my 5 hours of sleep had been woefully insufficient.  All I wanted was a bigass cup of coffee and few minutes to myself before the first call to prayer.  I pinched each side of my hood, so it would fall neatly against my back, opened the door of my room, and walked out into the dark.

At least in theory, the monastic dark is quiet.  During grand silence each day, from 8 at night till 7:30 the next morning, monks were supposed to be able to count on a silent house.  But closing one’s mouth is a funny thing: as soon as it happens, the environment’s noise amplifies.  Handled uncarefully, this dynamic makes life miserable.

I reached our industrial percolator and Fr. Patrick, the monastery’s abbot emeritus, was up getting coffee.  He had not fully dressed…he had donned only the rattiest of his two house robes, not bothering with scapular and belt.  Regarding monastic particulars, Patrick was the picture of indifference: he’d be apt, some days, to go even to church half-dressed and disheveled.  But as a former monastic superior and a 97 year old man, Patrick was practically uncorrectable.  On top of that, Patrick was chatty, and it flew in the face of the monastery’s more hushed ideals.

I leaned exhaustedly against the industrial coffee maker while its contents poured into my cup.  In muttered tones, Patrick narrated his inner monologue while chosing a mug.  

“Let see, this is too small, this one’s too big.” he traced his hands over the inverted mug-bottoms. “Aha, this is the one.  Deo Gratias.”  And the old man poured himself a coffee.

Shortly after I sat down, the buzzer sounded.  The buzzer abrasively called us to prayer five minutes before each Church service.  I gulped down my cup of wakefulness and headed to Church.

At Vigils, praying the psalms alternated with listening to the scriptures.  At worst, the coffee had not yet reached my ears, and whole prayer services would pass without hearing a word.  At best, something deeper than my ears, something longing for a wakefulness more open than my eyes, was listening.  And it happened that morning: first, there were the words. It was the book of Genesis, and Rebekah’s parents were debating letting her marry Isaac.  They said “we cannot say anything to you bad or good.  The thing comes from the Lord.”  In a sudden, insightful flash, the scriptures spoke to me. “Some things aren’t bad or good, they’re just from the Lord or they aren’t.  God’s will sometimes suspends morality."  I was fully awake.  My head swam with connection.  This is why I’d become a monk…the fact that I’d been given this kind of insight was only confirmation: The call I felt was God’s gift. I was supposed to be here.  

Breakfast followed Lauds, the 5:30 prayer service.  The time still fell within grand silence, but many of the monks began interacting with the world more, given the stress of spending so long in quiet.

I went to check my email.  Just after I sat down, my Junior Master, Fr. Thelonius, came in to check his.  Great, I thought now I’ll probably get a lecture about keeping grand silence more strictly. What a hypocritical asshole.  He preaches detachment in our classes, then he’s just as much of an email junkie as the rest of us.

Fr Thelonius sat down, and placed his coffee mug beside the computer.  He logged on.  As the computer was loading, he did something that struck me:  he made the sign of the cross.

That moment was a cascade of shocking realizations, one after the other.  I’d been judgmental all morning.  I'd been assuming I knew what was in the hearts of my brothers.  When that realization sunk in, for the first time since my alarm sounded, I was truly quiet.   In that quiet, I promised myself: from here on out, I’d be less hypocritical.

*************

Quite certainly, the above snapshot is a composite.  The names have been changed.  My own responses are accurate.  During my time in the monastery, I was alternately thrilled at the myriad little insights I’d have, and scandalized by the way people embodied the monastery's unrealized ideals.

Over time, I would give it a name.  I was addicted to religion.  For all of religion’s virtues, I like it mostly for the little spikes of brain chemistry it afforded—moments of insight, brief and prayer-induced alterations in consciousness.  I despised others for falling short.  My attention defaulted to their inadequacies, and yet it took providential shocks of self-awareness even to see my own.  The patterns of denial, insight, resentment, failure and resolve are the same patterns an alcoholic has, who attempts to fuel recovery with self-will.

And lest you think this cycle left me nothing but bitter toward the old monks I lived with, I’ll leave you with this small detail.  It reflects the humor I eventually learned was common among the brothers.  Brother Vincent, one day, was working in our “grading house,” where the eggs our chickens laid were cleaned, sorted by size and packaged.  He had just dropped a flat of eggs, and some of the yolk had splashed on another brother’s shoes.  

“Merciful heavens!” He said, overselling the line in typical Vincentian style.  He bustled about, cleaning the eggs off the floor, then fussily polishing the shoe in question.  When he was done, he stood up, placed his hands on the shoulders of the accidentally egged brother.  “I’m sorry,” he said with a similarly typical wink/grin combo, “it won’t happen again till next time.”

https://youtu.be/lqaKyekdAqw