At the point where the conversation began to slow and you almost get to that point of, "Man it was good to hear from you..." at the close of the phone call he says, "Hey did I tell you about the monastery I was at a for a week?" My natural response, "No. But you must."
He proceeded to tell me about this beautiful place in New Mexico (who knew monks were so technologically advanced?) and his time spent there in the middle of no where in the middle of New Mexico. Redundant, I know.
The day begins at 4 a.m. with the eucharist and the day is framed in prayer and work. At 7:30 every evening silence is kept until the morning. The first thing they say in the morning is praise to God and the last thing they say at night is praise to God. Wow.
He then told me about the celebration of sunrise. White robes are worn and as the sun breaks the horizon and spills light across the darkness, they declare Jesus' victory over darkness and death and his resurrection to life. Again, wow.
My friend told me about this trip and I was expecting him to bring some deep theology back to the discussion but all he said was, "Jared, you do this work and you pray these prayers and you find God in the ordinary." Once more, wow.
3 comments:
It's funny that a monastery like that could probably make a killing if it opened itself up as some kind of vacation or Christian getaway. People would be willing to pay for the opportunity to work all day and get up at the butt crack of four a.m. I know it seems strangely appealing to me.
This friend actually told me people can stay there for free! Part of their "monkness" or whatever is to be hospitable.
Those monks have been on the web since the 1990's.
Dang, I'm old.
Post a Comment