The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris [145]
Here, you can still feel what the death of one person does to the world. It’s a bitter luxury, but it’s all ours.
“IT’S A
SWEET LIFE”
Old monks are wild as well as simple. They perch more lightly on
the globe than the rest of us.
—Peter Levi, THE FRONTIERS OF PARADISE
While monasteries are renowned for their sacred spaces, the imposing churches and cloister walks that speak eloquently of silence, their holiest places are often not silent at all, but resound with conversation. In the “retirement center,” “care center,” or “hospital wing”—pick your euphemism—where many of the oldest members of a community reside, the oral history of the monastery is most alive. Such places in the outside world are commonly called “nursing homes,” and are much dreaded. Monasteries cannot help but reflect their culture, and Benedictines are not immune from the fear of old age and lack of respect for the elderly that mar American society. Community life, as Benedictines practice it, is so intense that over the years a perceived slight or the abuse of power can become heavy baggage; thus you sometimes find middle-aged monks who feel they have a score to settle with an older monk, who years ago may have been their teacher, boss, formation director, or abbot. But when community works as it should, its elderly have the self-respect of people who have spent a lifetime listening and being listened to.
Monasteries also demonstrate, often in surprising ways, that when several generations of people are living together, the place of the very old is to teach about possibility. The monk or sister who can speak of planting the venerable trees in the cloistered garden or of building the stone fence that marks off the monastery enclosure may prove inspiring to a newcomer who feels stuck in the tedious, unglamorous tasks of the novitiate: cleaning and waxing floors, washing windows, working in the compost pile and flower beds, wondering what all of this has to do with a life dedicated to God.
The monastic retirement center is a place where one often encounters old people in whom pretense has been so stripped away that their holiness is palpable. Turn the lights off and you suspect that they might begin to glow in the dark, radiating the “openness to all” and transparency of heart that scholar Peter Brown tells us made Anthony of the Desert recognizable to fourth-century pilgrims even in a crowd of black-robed monks. The novices assigned to care for the aged and infirm members of a community frequently discover that this sort of holiness is most evident in people who have endured with patience and grace many years of debilitating illness and prolonged physical pain. This is not at all a romanticizing of illness but a recognition that people can sometimes transform physical sickness into health of soul. The example of a sister who is a calm, centered, quietly joyful and generous person, and who has suffered for years from a degenerative neurological disease, means more to a young nun than any book of theology or class on monastic history. In her own community she’s found a woman who helps her to put many great souls of the Christian tradition into perspective: Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, Thérèse of Lisieux, all of whom converted their physical suffering into a love so profound that we are still reaping the benefits.
The stereotypical monk has a faith that is serene and certain. The reality is otherwise, especially for younger monastics, who often struggle mightily with issues of faith and belief. Near the end of a recent Monastic Institute, a week full of illuminating talks by a contemplative French Benedictine, Ghislain Lafont, an anguished young Trappist spoke up: “We’ve spoken