Musings from a Monastery

This past weekend, I tucked away to a monastery in the rolling hills of central Kentucky. I roamed the surrounding forests and farmland. I lay under trees, reading or just staring into the sky. I journaled and wrote and ate food prepared by Trappist monks. I even attended one of their ceremonies, where the monks sang and chanted. I’m sure this sort of ceremony has a name, but I don’t know it. Vespers, liturgy, sext—it’s all Latin to me.

I stood in the back of the church, resonant chants echoing from the walls, and wondered how long my body would tolerate standing. I envied the apparent ease with which everyone else remained on their feet. But only a few minutes passed before the man in front of me slumped into his chair. The woman next to him stroked his neck tenderly, knowingly.

I wasn’t alone, then. Under the robes, the rituals, the erect posture and polite smiles, don’t we all long for the same thing? Don’t we all long for healing?

The chanting monks yearn, I imagine, to be healed from sin or worldliness. They hope to be healed of whatever rift separates them from their God. The man who slumped into the seat in front of me hopes, I learned, to be healed of cancer and of a pinched nerve in his back. The woman who stroked his neck, what healing does she long for? Healing from fear, perhaps, and from this awful humanness that makes it possible to lose someone you love.

We long-haulers aren’t alone in the hunger for healing. This longing isn’t proof that we’re broken or deficient. It’s just proof that we’re human—that our lives are a tangle of darkness and light, fear and love, or (if you’ll permit a metaphor suited to my recent surroundings) crucifixion and resurrection.

The healing that I most long for isn’t physical (though I really, really want that, too), and it isn’t a one-time event. The healing that I long for and strive to live into every day is the healing of whatever rifts separate me from this moment now. Sometimes these rifts come in the form of thoughts or beliefs: “I’ll never get better” or “I feel awful, so today is going to be terrible” or “Everyone else is healthy, and I’m stuck here in bed.” Other times they come in the form of chronic distraction, noise, or busyness.     

It’s easy to imagine that the solution is to simply have a “better” life or a healthier body. Then, and only then, can we embrace the present. But embracing life is a way of being, not a task whose completion depends on the checking of prerequisite boxes. If I can’t embrace this life right now, what makes me think that I’ll have the presence or the courage to embrace a “better” or “healthier” life? Why not start now? Why not begin practicing today?

I won’t be donning robes or taking monastic vows. It’s unlikely that I’ll enter a church any time soon. But I can treat my morning cup of coffee with the sacredness of a sacrament, and I can utter loving words over this long-hauling body as some might over a rosary. I can dedicate myself to compassion, to open-heartedness, and to appreciation for the small wonders of this moment now as others might to religious vows.

Trappist monks are big on silence, and so speaking is discouraged in most parts of the abbey. It was a quiet weekend. But one brief exchange stands out in my mind. . . .

“It’s a beautiful day,” I said to a monk in passing.

“It’s the only one we’ve got,” he chuckled in return.  

What rifts separate you from this moment? From this life, here and now? What might healing look like?